Do you find that people you work with generally listen when you make suggestions? If not, you might well wonder how you can try to change that situation. It can be frustrating to find yourself in the weaker position, or to be the one in the group that people don’t pay much attention to. But the trick here is not to get too attached to that role, and instead find ways to rise above and out of it. A huge part of that is knowing how to effectively communicate your ideas in a way which means others will appreciate and listen to them more often. Let’s take a look at how you can expect to get your ideas across more regularly and succinctly.
Confidence
For many people, confidence is something of an issue, especially in the workplace. If you find that you often struggle with not being confident enough, you are probably keen to try and change that track. Changing such ingrained behavior patterns can be challenging, but it is worthwhile for the kinds of change it can bring about for you personally and professionally. If you struggle with confidence, there are many exercises you can do to improve it. Remember that confidence is merely the act of pretending to be confident. There’s no great secret to it other than just doing that, and essentially that just means that you need to practice. Work your way up to more and more daunting situations little by little. Essentially, this is the only true way to develop confidence in any lasting manner. Once you have confidence, people will listen much more.
Presentation
Tied in with the concept of confidence is another important one: presentation. This is something that really does affect your working life to a considerable degree, and it is absolutely worth spending the time trying to improve your presentation as best as you can. There are many sides to this issue alone. For a start, it means looking after the way you look. Dress appropriately, keep yourself looking clean and presentable, and already people will pay more attention to you. But you might also want to practice excellent presentation skills, for those occasions when you need to speak in front of others. Nobody likes this too much, but if you get some technical Powerpoint training from Training Connection as well as public speaking training, you will be able to deliver a much more efficient presentation. This will help to give your ideas weight.
Persistence
If people are still not really paying much attention to your ideas, it’s worth bearing in mind that you only have a certain amount of control over what people think. Ultimately you have to accept that you can’t please all the people all the time, and you just need to make sure that you are doing whatever you can to persist in your efforts to be heard. In time, people will inevitably begin to listen to you more. Then it is just a case of ensuring that you are spreading the right kind of ideas.
